The Inspector, part 2: Goole, ghoul, or something else

The Inspector, part 1 took his method apart, one person at a time. This video takes the question that video left open: what was he? By the end of the evening, the police have never heard of an Inspector Goole, and the infirmary has had no suicide in months. Then the telephone rings. A girl has just died on her way to the infirmary, and another inspector is coming to the house.

Anyone new to the play can get the events from An Inspector Calls: An overview. This video only asks what the Inspector was.

A reading is an interpretation you can argue from the words of the play. Three readings of the Inspector hold up well. The first says he is a real man. Perhaps a policeman, perhaps a hoaxer, but flesh and blood, who knew the girl's story and came to use it. The second says he is something supernatural. Priestley even stops a scene so that the name can be spelled out. Goole. G. double O-L-E. Say it aloud, and you hear ghoul, an evil spirit from old stories that haunts the dead. Priestley did not have to choose a name that sounds like that. The third says he is the family's conscience given a body: the voice each of them has been ignoring, knocking at the front door. Some readers add that he speaks for Priestley himself. That idea sits comfortably inside any of the three. Real, supernatural or conscience: which reading does the spelled-out name help most? Something supernatural. It is support, though, not proof, because a real hoaxer could choose a strange name too.

Three moments carry the case, and every reading has to survive all three. The first is his name, which you have just heard spelled. The second is the end of his last speech to the family, a warning of fire and blood and anguish. The play is set in nineteen twelve and was first watched in nineteen forty-five. And that audience had lived through two world wars that he seems to describe before they happen. The third is the play's last line, spoken by Birling after the phone call. And a police inspector is on his way here - to ask some - questions. Each reading survives each moment. A real man can carry an odd name and fear a war. A spirit fits all three. A conscience needs no badge at all. Which reading does the last phone call rule out: real, ghost, conscience, or none? None of them. Another inspector is coming, but that tells you nothing certain about who the first one was. The hoax reading has two champions - and Priestley picks them with care. Gerald's reading is that a stranger comes here pretending to be a police officer. It's a hoax of some kind. Birling grabs at that with relief. The whole story's just a lot of moonshine. Nothing but an elaborate sell! He even mimics the Inspector's final speech as a joke. You all helped to kill her. And minutes later, the telephone rings. Why does Priestley give the hoax reading to Birling, of all people? Because Birling has been wrong all evening, starting with the Titanic. Priestley hands the hoax to the man the audience has learned not to trust. Sheila answers every reading at once. Everything we said had happened really had happened. Her point does not need his identity settled. Whoever he was, the five links were real, and so was the girl. That is why there is no right answer to find. A strong essay argues one reading properly and names a real objection to it. Now, test the idea on the real man. The claim is that he knew her story and came to shame the family. The objection is that he describes her death hours before the phone call says it has happened.

You do not need to decide what he is. You need one reading, argued properly, with a real objection named, because the last line keeps every reading alive.

Whatever he was, the chain he leaves behind him is real. One chain, five links: every link hands her on to the next. The Inspector is the hand nobody can prove was ever there, and the chain is the same shape without him.

Pull two of those lines back, then test the readings on a moment this video has not touched. Gerald's reading: it's a hoax of some what? Kind. It's a hoax of some kind, the reading he and Birling most want to be true. Another line to place: who says everything we said had happened really had happened? Sheila. Her answer holds whatever the Inspector turns out to be. Here's a moment from Act One that this video has not used. Edna, the maid, opens the front door and shows the Inspector in. Which reading does Edna letting him in make harder to argue? The conscience reading. A servant who shares none of the guilt sees him arrive, so that is an objection to name, not a reason to give the reading up. So what was he? The police have never heard of him, and still the telephone rings, and still an inspector is on his way.

Thumbs-up this one when you're comfortable with it: one reading, one objection, any moment. If the three readings still blur, argue your least favourite one against yourself, and they separate.

Next in the chapter: Responsibility, the theme the whole play is built to prove.

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